Some people like to cook. Some people like to eat. Many like to do both.
I am one of the many.
I don’t recall when I first tried my hand at food preparation, but I do know that I was cooking on a regular basis by the time I was twelve. Both of my parents worked, so when us kids (including my brother and sister) returned from school a snack was in order. If my parents wouldn’t be home for a while (this in an age when kids alone in the house didn’t prompt calls to social services), I might try my hand at preparing something for dinner. I learned by doing, along with a healthy dose of mentoring by my Polish mother.
Fast forward a few years and I’m in college, out of the dorm, and living in an apartment where my roommate’s idea of haute cuisine is a salami and cheese burrito. So I cook.
And I experiment. I don’t recall ever using recipes. I’m sure I did, especially for baking, but it doesn’t take too many years of cooking every day before you lose your fear of mucking it up.
After many decades of winging it in the kitchen, I’ve become something of an extemporaneous whiz. Open the refrigerator, see what’s there, and make a meal out of it. So what if the ingredient combinations are strange? Why not have pickles in an omelet, or a bacon, chicken, asparagus burrito with artichoke sauce? And don’t even get me started on the many sweet, savory, and spicy ways you can churn out fruit dishes.
My writing takes its cue from the kitchen. I’ll freely combine, mash, and even smash genres together, just for the fun and surprise at what comes out at the other end. Sometimes it’s complete garbage. But that’s to my eye. Another reader may love it. Which is a whole different question—should I write for myself, or for the reader? At the moment, I’m writing for myself, as the readers are few and far between. I hope to continue writing for myself even if, by a stroke of luck, I one day have readers lined up to get my latest book.
Then again, I’m a people pleaser. I could get trapped on a treadmill, writing the same kind of story repeatedly. A lot of big name writers are on that treadmill. Some don’t mind. Others desperately want to get off, but their fans won’t let them. Nor will their publishers. Nothing traps a writer faster than money.
But having too many fans is a worry for tomorrow. Until then, I’m going to open the word bag every day and see what kind of ingredients I have to work with. Then I’ll whip up a creation that, although odd, is nonetheless a taste treat.
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